Help us track Detroit’s streetlights We’d like your help tracking the progress of streetlight repair. If you live or work in Detroit and would be interested in monitoring streetlight activity in your area, please send an e-mail to Nancy Andrews at lighting@freepress.com with your name, e-mail address and general area where you could monitor (the nearest cross street is sufficient). Please write “Detroit lighting” in the e-mail subject line.

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How did Detroit’s streetlights go out? Last week, Free Press reporter JC Reindl explained how the city’s lights went out, and why it’s so difficult to restore them. Here’s what readers had to say about one of Detroit’s most pernicious safety problems:

We do not need plans. Detroit has an overabundance of plans. What we need is action. Go to a more modern system. Focus on the most viable neighborhoods and eventually refurbish and, if necessary, replace the entire system. But you can’t do that right away — it could take as many as 10 years. But have a plan and work to get something done and something fixed on a regular and consistent basis.

The problem of cable stealing can be dealt with by putting in buried connection boxes and strain tying the cable so that it is connected to the box making it virtually impossible to quickly remove large amounts.